Kosmix riases $10M more for search sites in health, autos, more

Kosmix, the Silicon Valley search engine company that focuses on specific topics, such as health, has raised $10 million more in backing.

Kosmix is run by co-founders (including Venky Harinarayan, pictured left) who came close to buying Google in 1999 when they represented Amazon. Google was still a small company, but Google co-founder Sergey Brin responded to their offer saying he’d settle nothing short of single-digit billions; they passed. See our coverage of that history, here.

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Needless to say, in retrospect that was a mistake. The Kosmix guys are filled with ambition in order redeem themselves, and they continue to plug away at Kosmix despite terrific odds. Scores of competing companies have launched to focus on every specialty topic under the sun.

Could their hard work be paying off? Kosmix’ health consumer site, www.righthealth.com, is now the sixth most visited health site, according on Hitwise. It draws more than 3.9 million unique visitors a month, according to Quantcast, or a 56 percent increase since its official launch in fall. (See our coverage.) That comes despite a significant number of competitors in the health site and health search domain.

DAG Ventures led the investment. Previous investors Accel and Lightspeed also participated. Kosmix recently released a consumer auto site, www.rightautos.com, which attracts more than two million unique visitors a month, it said. It plans to release more topical search sites, including RightTrips.com, which is next.

The company previously raised $25 million.